Fagburn: Yes, It's Still Easter

Richard Thompson: I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight

Cardinal O'Brien: A Call For A Christian Fightback

The head of the Catholic church in Scotland has added his voice to growing calls for Christians to be allowed to openly express their beliefs during Holy Week.
In his Easter Sunday homily, Cardinal Keith O'Brien will urge Christians to 'proudly nail themselves to a big cross in the car park behind Asda, like they do in the Philippines'.
In a story that we made up, Birmingham council has banned public crucifixions citing health and safety regulations, and has called for Easter to be re-named Springterval.  
Speaking at Edinburgh's St Mary's Cathedral tomorrow, O'Brien will quote Pope Benedict XVI, who said Christians 'need to be free to act in accordance with their own bizarre medieval sado-masochistic voodoo death cult'.
The cardinal will also say: 'I know that many of you do nail yourselves to a cross in the privacy of your own homes, not in a pervy way, but as a simple indication that you are trying to live by Christ's standards in your own daily life, even though you've clearly never listened to a single word that he said.'
He will add: 'Easter provides the ideal time to remind ourselves of the centrality of superstition and stupid rituals in our Catholic faith.
'A cross can easily be knocked up using two planks of wood and some Evo Stik. I hope people will consider giving some as gifts, and perhaps even crucifying their own children.'
Last month, Cardinal O'Brien hit the headlines after calling for 'all the gays to be put to death like what it says in the Bible.'
A fundraising drive has been launched by Father Martin McVeigh who is selling off his extensive collection of gentlemens' magazines and DVDs.

The Daily Mail.
Probably.

Equity: The Tangled Webs We Weave

'When Antony Sher started acting with the pioneering Gay Sweatshop theatre company in the 70s, he managed to stay in the closet. "I look back and blush," he said. "We all agreed to do it on the basis that it was stated that not all the performers were gay so you didn't know who was and who wasn't.
"Then, in the mid-80s, when I did the British premiere of Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy I still wasn't out. I was doing press interviews about this great gay play that I felt so strongly about for a specific reason and I wasn't saying it – it was an astonishing waste of energy. But that's the kind of tangle you get into if you're not out."

Alex Needham talks to Antony Sher in The Guardian on the start of a new campaign by Equity - I Won't Pretend - to support actors who come out. 
This has evolved out of a survey by the actors' union that suggested many are still closeted in their professional lives.
That so few leading actors are out seems far more farcical and tragic than the media obsession with gay footballers. 
The article concludes with a suitably Wildean paradox from Sher;
"When you see any great performer, you sort of see into that person's soul. Your sexuality is profoundly a part of who you are. I think it's very difficult to really reveal yourself in that exquisite way if you're trying to hide part of yourself."

Update: Sher and the boyfriend Greg Doran do How We Met in The Independent On Sunday.
Think I'll have to add Mr Sher to my little list of the weekend broadsheets' Favourite Gays.

Coalition 4 Marriage: Behind You!

The Independent compares and contrasts Coalition 4 Marriage and Coalition For Equal Marriage; "One side appears well-funded; the other is a shoestring operation."
Nina Lakhani goes digging for the dirt on C4M.
Though she doesn't unearth much that's new, it's worth repeating all the same.

• Coalition For Marriage are basically being run and bankrolled by five shady and sinister evangelical Christian groups.

• They work out of the same building as the Christian Medical Fellowship - here's how much they hate queers. 

• Directors include: Dr Don Horrocks, the head of public affairs for the Evangelical Alliance "which in its latest annual review boasts 300 conversations in the corridors of power and regular contact with 40 MPs and peers".

• Nola Leach, the head of the cash-rich Christian Action Research and Education (CARE) "which, according to its annual report, spent £338,000 last year influencing public policy".

• Andrea Minichiello Williams, a barrister and founder of Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre, "which funds high-profile cases 'to protect the freedoms of Christians in society'" - like that mad crucifix lady.

• And Norman Wells, a director of Family Education Trust/Family And Youth Concern who tell lies in schools.

• Colin Hart, C4M's campaign manager, also runs the Christian Institute, "a charity which has been criticised for its overt political campaigning. Adoption experts condemned its organ donor-style cards which read: 'In the event of my death, I do not want my children to be adopted by homosexuals.'"

Stonewall's Ben Summerskill comments wrily: "We remain confused about who is behind the so-called Coalition for Marriage and equally confused about their motives. It would be much more refreshing if they just admitted that they didn't like homosexuals."

Harry Hay: Because Of His Dreams

Even among the largely apolitical society of actors, Harry persisted in discussing a gay utopia. At one party when he broached the subject, his date cut him dead with the remark; "My God, you are degenerate!" But at another party, at the Santa Monica Canyon home of stage manager Tom Turner, Harry's notion fared better. He and the host "got to talking about dreams of what we wanted in our lives. And I must have talked about some of my dreams of a team of me like us."
"Following up on the writings of Edward Carpenter, I wanted to discover who gay people were, and what we had contributed, and what we were for. I wanted a way for us to show 'the others' how beautiful our dreams really were. Several of the heardened, experienced queens started to laugh and taunt me. Suddenly Tommy stood up and said; 'Stop it, all of you. Because of his dreams this boys has a long, hard and rocky road ahead of him. We all had dreams like his once, too. We've lost them traded them away for trash, or even betrayed them. So leave him alone. Be glad he's got his dreams. maybe someday, if he's lucky and brave, something will come of it. Something good for all of us."

Harry Hay - who would have been 100 today - recalls a party circa 1935.
Quoted in The Trouble With Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement by Stuart Timmons.
A communist, dreamer, utopian, activist, organiser, lover, teacher, troublemaker, peacemaker, sissy, Androgyne, Mattachine, homophile, Lifelong Friend of the People, third sex, Two-Eyed One, berdache, gender outlaw, radical faerie, elder, spirit, anti-assimilationist, queer pioneer, gay brother, and hero.
I love Harry Hay so much.
Dream on.

Doomsday Diaries: 75 Best Supporting Actresses

LOL! etc etc.
I think I'm in love...

David Sedaris: Jesus Shaves

On the real meaning of Easter...

Lynne Featherstone: Crucified

As it's Easter, The Daily Mail decides to wibble on once more about "attempts to ban the wearing of crosses and crucifixes" at work.
Snore!
As it's Easter, the Mail also clears some space so Quentin Letts can try and crucify Lynne Featherstone, the Lib Dem Equalities Minister.
The whole thing hinges on "her handling of the gay weddings controversy", with a not so subtle subtext.
Never mind the policy, here's the sexism...

"Though aged 60 (and counting), she teeters up to the Despatch Box in high heels, grinning girlishly at the Opposition benches before hesitantly lisping a few opening apologies for losing her place or some such calamity. Think of Ulrika Jonsson corpsing during one of her weather forecasts in the Eighties.
"Quite often Mrs Featherstone giggles, says she did not quite catch the drift of the question or pushes her long fringe out of her smouldering eyes and gives a hapless shrug of her shoulders.
"She invariably pulls at the bottom of her skimpy designer top, the better to accentuate her slinky torso. Shades of a Wonderbra advert — from the Minister for Women!"

Wouldn't it be easier just to come out and call her a "silly old cow"?
Letts proclaims; "Mrs Featherstone is in an intellectual muddle, though she does not seem to know it. Well, there’s a surprise! On gay marriage, the divorced mother of two presents herself as the champion of tolerance. Yet on the wearing of crosses, she is completely the opposite — so intolerant that she is using Government lawyers to fight her corner."
"Even her colleagues in the Liberal Democrat party call her ‘Lynne Featherbrain’," Letts claims.
"She has another nickname, ‘Dorian’, because she is so similar to the ageing vamp of that name (played by Lesley Joseph) in the TV sitcom Birds Of A Feather."
"She has been a lifelong fighter of the flab... inveighed against Page 3 girls and all that sort of jazz... said she ‘wouldn’t really have a problem’ with women having cosmetic surgery to give their sagging breasts..."
Oh, and lest we forget, Letts reminds us that "Dorian" is "of Jewish stock."
"But with tame Christians being tormented by the Government machine, there surely comes a time when the Featherstone joke has gone far enough."
A shockingly shameful exercise in misogyny, even by the Mail's gutter-low standards.
Drop dead, Quentin.

Ben Bradshaw: Pure Politics

.'

The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph - the two newspapers that have been relentlessly pushing an anti-gay marriage line - have some good news to report today.
'Gay MP Attacks Government Plans To Allow Same-Sex Couples To Marry', claims the Mail headline.
"One of Britain's first openly gay MPs has criticised Government plans to allow same-sex couples to get married.
"Former Labour minister Ben Bradshaw said the controversial move was 'pure politics' and insisted that Britain's gay community did not need the word 'marriage'."
The Telegraph echoed this trumpeting; "We Don't Need To Get Married, Says Gay MP"
Subtext: You see, even a gay Labour MP doesn't want gay marriage?
Case closed!
Coalition 4 Marriage were just as pleased.
Both papers ran the same quote from Cunts 4 Marriage's Colin Hart; "I welcome the comments by Mr Bradshaw, who has hit the nail on the head when he said that the Government is playing "pure politics" with this issue.
"Civil Partnerships already give the same legal rights to same sex couples that marriage gives to heterosexual couples. This squashes the Government's major argument for forcing through this change."
Those serial gaybashers, The Christian Institute, have also let out a cry of "Hallelujah!"
So he's handed the bigots a gift - well done, Ben.
Mr Bradshaw's comments come from a piece in The Washington Post on Tuesday; 'British Conservatives Lead Charge For Gay Marriage'.
The Post didn't make much of Bradshaw's words - which appear, as Rev. Lovejoy might say, somewhere near the back.

"This is more of David Cameron trying to drag the Conservatives kicking and screaming into the modern world,” said Ben Bradshaw, a ranking Labor lawmaker who in 1997 became one of Britain’s first openly gay members of Parliament. 
“Of course, we’ll support it, but this is pure politics on their part. This isn’t a priority for the gay community, which already won equal rights” with civil partnerships.
He added: “We’ve never needed the word ‘marriage,’ and all it’s done now is get a bunch of bishops hot under the collar. We’ve been pragmatic, not making the mistake they have in the U.S., where the gay lobby has banged on about marriage.”

Ben Bradshaw is an extremely odious and obnoxious individual; indistinguishing himself as an MP by being one of the main and most idiotic cheerleaders of Tony Blair's imperialist wars against Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
An apologist for mass murder, no less, so hardly a moral compass.
As Minister Of Health he waived through private management of NHS Trusts.
One of Tony Blair's useful (gay) idiots, he is still an ultra-loyalist.
And what was good enough for Tony - second class citizenship via civil partnerships - is clearly good enough for him.
Although he is obviously correct when he says the noise about gay marriage is mainly a PR exercise for Cameron's Tories.
Just as he is correct, and incongruously candid, when he admits civil partnerships were Tony Blair's stab at pragmatic compromise.
And, to mix my bodily metaphors, I guess that in the Washington Post quotes Ben Bradshaw was, in his own hamfisted way, simply toeing the old party line.

Update: Bradshaw confirmed he had said this on BBC Radio 4's World At One, but stressed that his point was he thought it wasn't a priority, even within a gay policy framework, compared to say tackling homophobic bullying.
The presenter also ended by outing him as "the son of a Church of England vicar"...

• In the interests of balance here's a Conservative politico, Ian Birrell - a former speechwriter for David Cameron - writing for The Guardian yesterday in defence of gay marriage and against 'The Tea Party Tories', those "angry right-wingers who seek a return to the mythical golden age of Thatcher", who oppose it.

Update: Ben Bradshaw interviewed on Gaydar Radio News saying his remarks were "taken out of context rather grotesquely and quoted rather selectively" - then repeats them.

Fagburn: Easter

"Good evening. Today is Good Friday. There is no news."

BBC radio announcer, April 18th 1930.

I love Easter, me.
I'll let you know if anything happens.

Ed Miliband: Hello Point! I've Missed You

Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has given his first major interview since the Coalition government went into total meltdown last week.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man etc etc.
So how did this inspirational young firebrand try to connect with an angry nation and win them over to Labour?

"When it comes to the next election, we recognise we will inherit a difficult set of economic circumstances. 
"We now have to convince people we have got ways of making society fairer without spending more money. There are difficult decisions but we have different values which can make people’s lives better.’

In a wide-ranging interview, Mr Miliband also: 

• Launched a strong defence of Labour’s financial links with the unions, but said he was ready for cross-party talks on reform of party funding 

• Revealed Labour would go further than the Government on gay marriage, allowing ceremonies in churches that want to perform them as well as register offices

• Proposed a big expansion of ‘restorative justice’, with young offenders made to confront their victims and make amends

• Warned energy companies a Labour government will legislate to force them to lower bills for over-75s

The Daily Mail.

I suppose if Fagburn was feeling generous I could say it's "nice" that he's included gay marriage in his inaction plan - and, as, The Mail points out, he's gone that extra inch further than Cameron by saying we should be able to marry in church - but if he thinks any of this bland drivel comes anywhere close to addressing peoples' most pressing political concerns right now, then, my friend, we are completely and utterly fucked.

Launched a strong defence of Labour’s financial links with the unions, but said he was ready for cross-party talks on reform of party funding

Revealed Labour would go further than the Government on gay marriage, allowing ceremonies in churches that want to perform them as well as register offices

Proposed a big expansion of ‘restorative justice’, with young offenders made to confront their victims and make amends

Warned energy companies a Labour government will legislate to force them to lower bills for over-75s

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2125390/Were-Miliband-attempts-steal-Osbornes-austerity-slogan-saying-Chancellor-use-again.html#ixzz1r9tdXNhz

Panda News: Gay Rumours Slammed

'As of last night Tian Tian and Yang Guang had failed to mate, leaving keepers, tourists, biologists and zoo accountants frustrated...
'The failure of 20-stone Yang Guang to perform has left many of the zoo’s staff underwhelmed. “He just needs to grab her and get on with it,” said Rachel Goddard, who works in the zoo’s communications department. “She’s still keen, but it’s fading off now.”
'Ms Goddard assured zoo visitors that Yang Guang was not gay, just inexperienced'
 
The Times. 
Not sure if The Times' cartoon above is utilising a same-sex metaphor. 
You may remember after the election the popularity of portraying Cameron and Clegg as a gay couple, most often in Brokeback Mountain homage.
Does this mean this is the end of the affair?
"I wish I knew how to quit you" etc.
Or maybe it just means that Nick Clegg is fucked?
"You know friend, this is a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation."

David Cameron: Let's Make Up And Be Friendly

'He told church representatives gathered at Number Ten: "I hope we won't fall out too much over gay marriage. There'll be some strong arguments and some strong words.''
'Mr Cameron sought to reassure his audience that the proposals would "change what happens in a register office, not what happens in a church".
Addressing recent attempts to ban crucifixes and public prayer, Mr Cameron said, pumping his fist in the air: 'I think there's something of a fightback going on, and we should welcome that.
'"The values of the Bible – the values of Christianity – are the values that we need."

The Daily Mail.
Fagburn has a feeling this is the first time that Mr Cameron has made any public mention of gay marriage since his fabled conference speech last year.
Be interesting to see how he tries to square this circle.
Well obviously, when I say "interesting", I mean "hilarious".
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.
Or something like that.

Update: There's a transcript of Cameron's speech and an incisive commentary by Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society here.
Sanderson calls it "an unctuous speech of such disingenuousness and hypocrisy that it almost takes the breath away."
None of today's papers mentioned the following;*

'Perhaps the most telling part of the speech is about his conflict with religion over gay marriage. He hopes that the religious leaders he is addressing will not be too harsh. And just in case they won't let up in their relentless and unpleasant campaigning against gay rights, he throws out a hope to them that he might give in to their bullying. "If this doesn't go ahead, to those of us who'd like it to go ahead, there will still be civil partnerships, so gay people will be able to form a partnership that gives them many of the advantages of marriage," he says.

'It is at this point that gay couples who had hoped to tie the knot can start to take down the bunting and cancel the wedding cake order.

'It is the first inkling that the promises he made to the gay community are very likely to be betrayed..."

So we're back now to not "how", but "if" same-sex marriage would be implemented.

As I've said here before with Cameron now under siege and the Coalition in crisis, I wouldn't be surprised if gay marriage is now left to die on the vine. 
But then I've never been convinced it was ever really a priority for the Conservatives.

* Correction - The Times had the quote, but failed to note its import. Apologies.

Gareth Williams: Daily Mirror Exclusive!

Yes, that's a picture of his bath.
I kinda already had a pretty good idea what a bath looks like, but thanks anyway.

Daily Mail Cartoon Fun Time: Spot The Comedy Gay!

The horror! The horror!
Cartoon accompanying Richard Littlejohn column ranting away incoherently about the Olympics being hijacked by the politically correct brigade - yes, again.
"Stephen Frost, the committee’s Head of Diversity and Inclusion... was recruited by the Olympics organisers on the basis of his extensive experience as a member of the gay rights pressure group Stonewall..."
See?!! First you make the buggers legal, next thing you know they've got jobs!

Thought For The Day: Evan Davis

'Davis's homosexuality – he is one of the few prominent gay journalists [sic] – often makes headlines' claims The Independent.
'How does he deal with the exposure?
"How long have we got?" he sighs. "You accept you have to give a bit of your personality. I don't keep it secret that I live with my partner Gio. I'm very proud of my gayness. But there is lots I wouldn't want the press to write about me... it is a matter of regret that being gay is the most interesting thing about me."'

Well, that and the fact you've got your tits pierced, Eva.

Letter Of The Week: No Stamp Required

No, the Royal Mail has not just issued "a new stamp bearing Alan Turing's likeness" as stated in Pass notes (28 March). The stamp to commemorate his 100th birthday as part of the Great Britons series features the bombe decryption device. The equivalent of "please send photo of tractor"? It would be interesting to find out how many acknowledged homosexuals have appeared on a stamp.

Richard Humphry
Stockport

Letter to The Guardian.
Well, anyone?
Can you recall ever licking the rear of a gay man of note?
Fangyewverymuch - I'm here all week...

Update: A letter in Thursday's Guardian confirmed Freddie Mercury is the only one - and Gandhi is the only non-white person.   

Update2: A letter in Friday's Guardian pointed out another non-white person has been depicted on a Royal Mail stamp; Farrokh Bulsara, aka Freddie Mercury.

Country Life: Too Many Syllables

Some bullying members of the militant homosexual lobby are on the virtual warpath because Country Life have run an advert for Coalition 4 Marriage.
Many people are leaving complaints on the magazine's Facebook page. 
Good for them - though I can't say I'm particularly arsed about it.
Is anyone surprised Country Life have done this?
This is the third place to my knowledge where C4M has tried to place adverts - and they all show who they see as their natural constituencies.
Guido Fawkes blog has run a banner ad - take a look at any comments section and you'll see most of his readers are really nasty and scarily right-wing.  
I got into a brief Twitter row with editor Paul Staines about this.
He defended his actions by tweeting; "It is an advert by pro-marriage Christians. Not homophobic. I ran adverts for Ken Livingstone. Advertisement <> endorsement."
When asked if he did endorse it, came the reply; "Don't know, don't care. I just count the cash and re-stock the wine cellar."
The Womens' Institute were widely praised for refusing to run an ad for C4M last month.
They used the opposite argument to Mr Fawkes; "As WI Life is the national membership magazine, any promotion of your campaign could be seen as an endorsement... to members. We do also welcome all women to the WI and this campaign could offend many of our members."
Good for them.
The WI are often caricatured as being hilariously Middle England, and I guess C4M may have thought they'd be a shoo-in.
It's instructive and satisfying that that is no longer the case.
And Country Life?
It's the inhouse magazine of Upper England.
Though I can't pretend to read it every week, it's essentially a series of adverts for multi-million pound houses, broken up with advertorial about multi-million pound houses - note the cover above shows Country Life's idea of a smaller country house.
Plus there's a few pictures of posh totty debs, and some doubtlessly positively gripping articles about hunting, shooting, dogging and farming.
Of course Country Life ran the ad!
What do you expect from the Coalition 4 Inbreeding?

Update: Email from Julia Dawson, Complaints Executive, Advertising Standards Authority, on Tuesday, saying the ASA are to investigate complaints that the "70%" claim on the C4M ads is misleading...

Gay Marriage: Bothered?

'Downing Street accepted that last week’s events had disappointed some MPs, but insisted there would be “no big change” in the way Mr Cameron does business. “We’ve got the right policies and we’re going to get on with delivering them,” said a source.
'However, Mr Cameron was directly confronted at a “robust” private meeting with members of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers, who told him he must make changes if the party is to have any hope of winning a full majority at the next election.
'Several members of 1922’s executive – elected by their fellow MPs - told Mr Cameron he must overhaul his Downing Street operation. Others told him to think again on controversial policies like gay marriage.
'Robert Halfon MP, a member of the 1922 executive, said he was concerned that the Government is struggling for support among the low-income workers whose votes decide the result in many marginal seats...'

The Daily Telegraph.
This is clearly a view the serial gay marriage-bashing Telegraph shares. 
Over the last few days it's been a recurring riff for both them and The Daily Mail.
Once one might have expected the rest of the right-wing press to bleat along in agreement.
But The Times has published as many as pro-gay marriage articles recently, as the Telegraph has anti.
When the Financial Times joined the debate it was to mock the specious arguments of the anti-gay lobby.
And The Economist's lead columnist Bagehot blogged this afternoon on "why the Tory right is wrong about gay marriage";

'I struggle to see the link between gay weddings and the government's recent, genuine offences against competence: a poorly-presented budget, and advice on preparing for a petrol strike that failed to take into account the detail that British motorists, when panicked, have the rational capacity of hens.
'But there you go. For a certain sort of MP, Mr Cameron's enthusiastic support for gay marriage clearly remains a talismanic blunder, that exposes his failings as an out-of-touch elitist surrounded by amoral metropolitans...'

Bagehot wonders who's really out of touch with the modern world, illustrating his argument with the following anecdote;

'Jane Ellison, the impressive, Bradford born and raised MP for the south London seat of Battersea, tells a story about the moments just after Mr Cameron's 2011 conference speech [when he said he supported gay marriage], as delegates and members of the audience streamed for the exits. Ms Ellison was just behind a smartly-dressed older couple of party members, when they were accosted by a campaigner proffering fire-and-brimstone leaflets against gay marriage. "Thank you," said one of them, as she declined the pamphlet: "But we're just not very bothered."'

Male Rape: And Words As Weapons

Yesterday's The Sun Sunday began its front page story with these lines; "A YOUNG squaddie at Prince Harry's Army base was the victim of a shocking gay sex attack, it was claimed last night. A drunken gang of three soldiers allegedly pinned him down as he slept at Wattisham, Suffolk..."
This is terrible terminology.
Why did The Sun use the phrase "gay sex attack", and not "sex attack?
Monday's tabloids usually repeat their rivals' Sunday scoops - sometimes they even give attribution - but the Express, Mirror and Star all appear to have ignored this story.
The Daily Mail ran it, using the same strange phrase as The Sun; "A young soldier at Prince Harry's army base was the victim of a drunken gay sex attack, it was claimed yesterday."
The only broadsheets to cover the story, The Times and The Independent, both used simply "sex attack".
Shamefully, Gay Star News wrote; "A young soldier at Prince Harry's UK army base was allegedly pinned down and assualted [sic] during a 'horrifying' gay sex attack."
A journalist writing for the gay media really should know better than this.
Much better.
(Pink News wrote of a "male sexual assault" or "sexual assault", Pink Paper said a man had allegedly been "sexually assaulted").
As Patrick Strudwick wrote in The Times last month; "The language we use only seems to collude with the stigma. The rape of men is routinely referred to as “gay rape” belying the mistaken belief that rape is about sex — rather than power — and therefore that it must be performed by, or to, gay men."
Tellingly, this is one of only two articles about male rape in the British press I'm aware of in the three years I've been writing Fagburn.
The other was in The Observer.
The strapline read; "Will Storr travels to Uganda to meet traumatised survivors, and reveals how male rape is endemic in many of the world's conflicts."
That Storr was writing about soldiers and civilian casualties in war zones reinforces how male rape and sexual assault are often about power - and there's nothing "gay" about them.

•  The image shows a poster produced earlier this year by Survivors UK.
"The helpline is for adult men (18 and over) who have experienced childhood sexual abuse or adult sexual assault/rape, as well as their partners and carers."  

Robert Wyatt: Shipbuilding

Coverage of the 30th anniversary of the Falklands conflict is already annoying me, so here's Robert Wyatt.
I'm just glad I don't have a telly so I can't see any archive news footage of grinning idiots waving Union Jacks. 
Mind you, I bet David Cameron is just gagging for the Argentinians to invade again right now...

Gay Marriage: It's Over

At last!
Over the last few weeks the Sunday papers have been filled to the AA Gills with articles about gay marriage, but I can't see any stand-alone pieces today.
Apart from the cover feature in The Sunday Times Magazine - but fittingly, this isn't so much about gay marriage as about gay divorce.
The piece appears to have been partly prompted by the recent story of the legal hoo-ha over the "million pound gay divorce settlement" between a financier, Peter Lawrence, and actor, Don Gallagher.
This was a gift to the press, coming with perfect timing during March's Great Gay Marriage Debate.
Much of the subtext to reporting was showing the folly of same-sex partnerships - though, to their credit, The Times and Sunday Times, have been among the most enthusiastic supporters of marriage equality.
The Sunday Times feature is fine; celebrity examples - Elton John and David Furnish hurrah! are compared and contrasted with Matt Lucas and Kevin McGee Oh noes!!! - plus some real life case studies, and stuff that sounds like it's come from a 'So You're Getting Gay Divorced...' leaflet from the solicitors.
Oh and what a cover photo, too.
Well, they all have those funny, little gay dogs. don't they?
Stereotypical for sure, but I think it's quite amusing, nonetheless.

The Sun Sunday: The Return Of Mr Hyde

Like Dr Jekyll falling behind his lab table ready to rise as Mr Hyde, you can almost smell The Sun Sunday turning back into The News Of The World.
Early editions of The SOS were much criticised for being bland and unsensational, but now it's getting back to its bad old ways.
Today's cover story has got it all; Tenuous links to the Royal Family! Squaddies! Bizarre sexual practices! Anti-gay innuendo!
'A YOUNG squaddie at Prince Harry's Army base was the victim of a shocking gay sex attack, it was claimed last night. 'A drunken gang of three soldiers allegedly pinned him down as he slept at Wattisham, Suffolk...'
I bet this caused a collective "Phwoar!' in the newsroom.
The Sun seem unaware - or perhaps just don't care - that nobody catagorises "male rape" as "gay", anymore.
The item also includes phrases like "Sex at attack Harry's base" or "a military probe is under way", which don't seem unfortunate, just extremely childish.
Welcome back (school) boys.

Cowell & Walliams: You Hit Me With A Flower

This is the Sunday Mirror's April Fool - some pap shots professing to show Simon Cowell and David Walliams canoodling in a park. 
'A fine BROmance... Simon Cowell and David Walliams fool around in the park - The boys found a ­secluded spot to lay out their rug, uncork their wine and enjoy a natter'
Cause they're secret gay lovers, see?!!
Ha ha ha!!!
Like all April Fool "Jokes", you feel this should come with its own canned laughter.

Update: The rumour in medialand is that the Mail's picture desk put in an offer for these photos thinking they were real.